Wanted to see if there were any takers on this. Sent from my iPad
Begin forwarded message: Replying to this comment on conlawprof: "The Old Testament doesn't purport to reflect natural law principles on marriage. The New Testament does, though." ------- One time I was teaching a Wittgenstein class. A student took the position that he believed in aliens. When I asked him why, he mentioned the sheer number of galaxies and other planets.The odds were too far in his favor. And so I replied, "you don't believe in aliens; you believe in probability." By the same token, when people say that the New Testament takes a position one way or another on same-sex marriage (if that is being said), one has to ask what they are really placing their faith upon. Matthew 19 speak of two issues: (a) divorcing a wife; and (b) men who would want to forego the male-female union that Jesus references. The people who would not find such a union attractive are: (1) Those who have devoted themselves to God; (2) Those who were born differently; and (3) those who were "of men." The term used is "eunuch." He doesn't mean castrated; he means those who are not predisposed to having the kind of commitment to wives that he just described when answering that specific question. See Matthew 19:12. . So, it is not at all clear to me that the New Testament takes a position on anything until human beings start superimposing what Wittgenstein called "pictures." It is THIS (the picture) that is the object of faith. This is same problem originalists have. They think "truth" is being defeated when they should see only that one arrangement of it (a mental picture) is being rejected for another. My reading of Matthew conjures up this picture. Jesus wasn't giving a sermon (the law); he was only answering a question about when it is okay to divorce your wife. When the answer seemed stern, he was asked point blank: why take a wife then? He then basically said that not everyone would, and listed some reasons why. Then this story gets repeated as social hearsay for decades. I don't see anything that addresses gay marriage in a negative way. Regards and thanks. Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq. Associate Professor Wright State University Website: http://seanwilson.org Blog: http://ludwig.squarespace.com Book: http://flexibleconstitution.squarespace.com/
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